It wasn’t that long ago when securing the naming rights to a stadium or arena was a pretty big deal for a lot of big businesses.

Is that allure fading?

Denver’s biggest sports facility and attraction, the work of art formerly known as Invesco Field at Mile High, then Sports Authority Field at Mile High, is simply at Mile High. With both previous naming-rights sponsors out of the picture, it’s now the Denver Broncos “House with no name.” The Sports Authority signs are in the process of being sacked.

Invesco, with a checkered history, has undergone numerous “restructuring” procedures and moved its offices to Atlanta, while Sports Authority Inc. has undergone bankruptcy and dissolution.

In Fort Collins, the spectacular new on-campus stadium that now houses the Colorado State football team has never had a naming rights sponsor, and it might be a while before it does.

The school did get a substantial (anonymous) donation to name the playing surface “Sonny Lubick Field,” and it has secured several sections of the building with corporate sponsorships but no big-ticket overall naming rights sponsor that TV announcers can repeat over and over during telecasts.

CSU Radio Network color analyst Mark Driscoll is a former CSU quarterback who also happens to be the president of First National Bank, one of many companies with a significant advertising presence in the stadium. Driscoll can see the situation from a business owner’s perspective as well as the school's.

“These naming rights, to me, are a lot of money,” Driscoll said. “It’s like any sort of advertising or promotion – unless you get direct feedback (called ROI, or return on investment in the advertising world) it’s difficult to tell the value. It’s probably more art than science when it comes to the whole world of advertising. In my view, if you take that money and put it into radio or into digital marketing, which I think these days is a big piece of this, you can probably better estimate the return. Businesses are more and more concerned about return on investment, and I think that’s some of it.”

You would think it would be awesome for a partner sponsor to have Jim Nance welcome a national TV audience “back to (insert name here) Stadium for today’s huge AFC battle between the Denver Broncos and the New England Patriots.” That kind of mention on national TV is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in today’s advertising market.

And with the location of Mile High Stadium, the number of eyeballs that see the signage on the building every day from Interstate 25 and surrounding busy streets would seem to add up to be worth the asking price.

Driscoll counters that point by noting that while you can measure “impressions” for a spot like Mile High Stadium by pinpointing the number of cars that drive by it every day, you can’t pinpoint how many of those eyeballs are people in your “target market” demographic. Game broadcasts consumed by fans of the team and sport, along with carefully calculated and directed digital and social media campaigns, can better target those potential customers for a specific product or service.

“I really think all of us are trying to learn about the world of digital marketing,” Driscoll continued. “Of course, that’s where it’s going. I think businesses are saying if we need to invest that kind of money, are we going to put that into naming rights or are we going to put it into figuring out how we can get more millennials to look at our advertising on social media?

“I have no idea what the Broncos or CSU are asking for those rights, but if they’re actively marketing — which I assume they are — obviously they are either missing the market or they’re missing it with price.”

It remains sort of shocking to most local sports fans that there doesn’t seem to be a rush for, nor a slam dunk replacement out there, for the defunct Denver-based sporting goods company. Most of the sporting public would be fine if the Broncos' home was simply re-named Mile High Stadium.

The Broncos, who were receiving a reported $600,000 per year from the naming right sponsor, say they need that revenue to pay for upkeep on the building. So it’s assumed they will eventually find a new partner. But will they get the same kind of revenue stream? Will any team get what they used to get for naming rights?

Is it conceivable next fall the Broncos will be playing in Mile High Stadium and the Rams at Sonny Lubick Field?

“I guess I’d be really surprised if the Broncos (didn’t get a naming rights sponsor).” Driscoll said. “I think it’s a little different for a university. Frankly, how many college stadiums have naming rights? There aren’t that many. (The University of Colorado does not have a sponsor for their football stadium, named after Fred Folsom, but does for basketball at the Coors Event Center.) I’m confident that CSU is actively looking, but I’d be more surprised if the Broncos didn’t have somebody in place for next season.”

Fans aren’t really in any hurry. Sentiment to call the 17-year-old home of the Broncos Mile High Stadium runs strong. And CSU fans would probably be just fine with calling their new home Sonny Lubick Field for the foreseeable future.

There are great memories in those names.

Mark Knudson is a Denver-based sports columnist and sports talk show radio personality.